Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Again, someone had to survive to tell of this place. No matter Wynn’s reason for coming here, or what she sought, the guild had to know of the seatt’s existence and of a monster in its depths.

Something had to come from all that this had cost.

The creature’s head whipped back toward Chuillyon, and he peered around the coffin’s base. Its maw opened once again, spittle dripping from its jaws to the floor.

Ghassan gained his feet and took a stumbling step as he began to chant.

“No!” Chuillyon shouted.

Ghassan froze in silence.

“Go!” Chuillyon shouted. “Tell our own of this place. Go ... now!”

Ghassan’s brow furrowed as either anger or frustration passed across his caramel features. But Ghassan was so close to the open portal. He could escape this hall.

“Get ready to run!” Chuillyon called. “I’ll distract it.”

He steeled himself, hoping that when he died, it would be quick, if not painless. But he saw no choice. Ghassan was the only sage here with a chance.

Before Chuillyon could move, Ghassan bolted.

Chuillyon saw the Suman run straight for the wide breach from which the creature had emerged—and not for the exit out of this place. Chuillyon was stricken cold as he watched Ghassan launch himself into that opening and fall from sight down the shaft.

Chuillyon could not breathe. His mind went numb as any frail hope withered, thinking that all this would die with him. Why would Ghassan kill himself in such a futile manner? Did he fear the creature would pursue him, and he preferred another death?

Chuillyon was alone as he heard claws upon the hall’s floor.

The creature rushed him, and all he could do was retreat to the wall between the coffins. The reptile came too rapidly for him to dart along the wall, and its head thrust in at him only an arm’s length away.

A sadness like no other crushed everything inside of Chuillyon.

Ghassan’s self-destructive act, Hannâschi’s helplessness, and Shâodh’s burned bones overwhelmed all other thoughts as he looked in the creature’s black glistening eyes.

He could not bear any more sadness and loss. All he had left was a moment to pray.

Chârmun ... fill me with your absolute nature ... in my sorrow of failure.

“Nothing matters but the orb!”

Chane heard Wynn’s shout on the edge of his awareness, but it brought only a ripping sense of denial. Hunger, fury, and his love for this woman tangled, becoming one and the same. Then he heard her chanting softly and saw her thrust out the staff’s uncovered crystal.

Chane lashed out at the winged creature’s tail with both blades, trying to make it turn on him.

“Chane, don’t!” Wynn cried. “Go!”

No searing light filled the tunnel.

He halted, looking to her. Why had the sun crystal not ignited? Wynn raised her shocked eyes to the end of the staff. Something had gone wrong. Chane would have screamed if he had a true voice.

But the creature did not spit fire again.

Shade snarled and weaved, trying to stay between it and Wynn. The scaled beast raised its head out of reach, but its attention was fixed on Shade.

Wynn bolted forward. She tried to slip by, but the creature’s neck snaked down and cut her off. It would not allow her to pass. She locked eyes with Chane, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

The desperation on her face knifed Chane in the chest. She grew still, looking at him, and her voice was frighteningly calm.

“If you care anything for me,” she called, “you will listen. What matters to me here is who I am ... and it matters more than even what I mean to you. Go after Sau’ilahk. Get to the orb first.”

Chane took another step.

Wynn shook her head, and this time her voice was barely audible.

“If you love me, then go ... for me.”

Chane shuddered.

Those words stung him more than if she had simply told him to leave her and never return. To deny what she asked and save her, or to do as she asked and lose her, was crueler than any choice she had ever forced on him.

He let out a hiss of anger and panic. The feral thing at the core of his nature struggled beneath the violet concoction that had kept him awake since they had first headed under the mountains. He could not take his eyes off Wynn, even as she turned to face the creature hovering just beyond Shade’s bared teeth.

The creature was poised in stillness, but for how long?

If you love me, then go ... for me.

Chane cringed in anguish as Wynn’s plea kept rolling through this mind. How could he deny what she claimed by not doing what she asked?

All he could do was turn and run down the tunnel.

Ore-Locks had barely regained his feet. As Chane rushed by the dwarf, he snarled.

“With me—now!”

Ghassan kept falling down the shaft, out of control, still dazed by the backlash of his failed sorcery on the creature. Chuillyon’s demand that he flee still left him shocked, but there was much more at stake here than just revealing the discovery of Bäalâle Seatt. Chuillyon had not seen the frightening hints in the translated poem.

Ghassan feared whatever Wynn might find and remove from this place. He had to learn her true purpose at any price. As he fell, he had no time to regret leaving the old elf to such a death.

Wynn did not yet know that the wraith had followed her. It had not killed her, so it could only be using her for the same purpose as Ghassan sought. If her search had anything to do with something left behind by enemy forces, the wraith could not be allowed to reach it first.

Ghassan had to survive, just as Chuillyon had said.

His shoulder clipped the shaft’s wall.

He tumbled as his body careened off the jagged walls. A rock protrusion ripped his sleeve. Even dazed, he knew he could hit bottom at any moment, and he forced his mind to focus amid vertigo.

Ghassan closed his eyes, seeing only the shaped sigils igniting in his thoughts. With air rushing past and ripping at his clothing, he pushed against the shaft’s walls with his will, trying to slow his rapid descent. But all he felt and heard were bits of stone breaking when he collided with the walls, and he barely heard clothing and skin tear as he plummeted through the darkness.

Wynn looked into the creature’s face. Her attempt to ignite the sun crystal had failed, though she’d done everything right.

Shade’s snarling suddenly ceased.

An ache grew in Wynn’s head as she saw the creature fixate on the dog.

A cacophony, like a thousand leaves, began blowing about inside Wynn’s skull. It grew to a deafening pitch until she whimpered and dropped to her knees. She clutched Shade tightly. She couldn’t even save the dog, only hold her and wait to die.

Shade’s memory-words rose in Wynn’s thoughts above the scratch of leaf-wings.

—Fay-born—

The creature’s head swung toward Wynn. What was Shade trying to tell her?

The roar in Wynn’s mind drowned out everything else. All she saw were great black eyes within a reptilian face boring into her until everything went dark.

There was only blackness.

Wynn’s chest hurt and then began to burn, as if she’d held her breath too long but couldn’t let it out. She sensed motion but her limbs wouldn’t move. It was so familiar, but amid growing panic to breathe, she couldn’t remember why.

Blackness faded, but only a little.

She exhaled hard and couldn’t stop shaking as she gasped, unaware of where she was. Every muscle in her body clenched and wouldn’t release. Something pulled at her thoughts, but it wasn’t the crackle of leaf-wings.

It was monotonous and endless, like a wind shrieking inside her head. Words rose out of it in fragmented whispers.